Trauma
"A Normal Human Response To An Abnormal Event"
If you've ever been traumatized, and you try to remember back, you realize you may have issues remembering details of the event. You may remember noises or smells or sounds, but may have a hard time remembering, in any order, the events that occurred at the time of the trauma. Specific details seem murkey; and you wonder why, as this was a life changing event, can't I remember specific details or what happened prior or right after the trauma.
This is because, when a Trauma occurs, it changes the way the brain functions. People do not have control over what happens in the brain at the time of a trauma. The thinking part of the brain shuts down and the brain becomes all about the body's survival. Flight, Fight, and Freeze are the only responses the brain recognizes during a trauma. Even what a person interprets normally in a situation, is temporarily shut down at the moment trauma occurs. This is why people sometimes have no memory or very vague memories of the occurrence. At the moment of the trauma, they are functioning completely in survival mode.
Once clear of the immediate trauma, the brain goes back to a more normal function. This is why it is so hard for victims of trauma and their loved ones to understand why they get stuck, and have a hard time "getting over it" for years to come. When that trauma gets re-triggered unexpectedly, years down the road, our brain and body will have a severe reaction and go through the same pattern of shutting down. When this occurs, we cannot understand why or how this happened; and why it is affecting us now.
Partners and families witness the outcome of a loved ones symptoms and find themselves picking up the pieces. The family member, who's roles have had to change to hold the family together until their loved one can rejoin their normal functioning again,
also suffers secondary trauma. It's up to the other person to step in and shoulder the child-rearing, financial roles and other family responsibility, until the loved one recovers enough to return to fully functioning again. As a person who suffers from Trauma often knows, their lives were one thing before the trauma and became something different after.
As a survivor of trauma, I would work along side you, to help you through your recovery from the effects trauma holds over you. Together, we can design a plan for recovery so you can heal and be able to live the life you deserve.
